


The Sunshine of Your Love

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Dexter (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by Blackcurrant</p><p>Rita worries, sometimes.  Spoilers through season two of Dexter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sunshine of Your Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for decidedly

 

 

Sometimes, Rita worries. Real, solid worrying that she makes note of- different from the  
generalized anxiety that long ago became like the wallpaper of her mind. She worries about  
Cody and Astor, of course; recurring flashes of blind panic when she'll forget for a moment, in  
the haze of getting to work or coming home from work or actually being at work, that Cody has a  
lesson, or Astor has practice, and wonder for a brief, bright moment, Where are my children?  
There is the dull pounding, like water persistent against the side of a boat, about their futures:  
what kind of world are they growing up in? What kind of world will they meet as adults? If they  
understand everything that's happening around them- Rita is an adult, and sometimes she isn't  
sure that she truly understands. If one day, some theretofore hidden inheritance from Paul will  
rear its head, in the form of violence or addiction. In dreams, Rita forgets that Paul is gone, or  
relives a scene long ago shed from her life: Paul is home early, which is bad, which means that  
she will be prickling with anxiety until he finally enacts whatever purpose he's still holding  
within him, letting it simmer like the contents of a can left in the car on a hot day. Or, Paul  
comes home late, which is worse, because she'll have no time to prepare; he'll knock her against  
a wall, or throw her on the bed, and she might never find out why. She'll wake up, shaking, and  
make it to the bathroom before she rattles out a few hiccupy sobs.

And Rita worries about Dexter. Strange, to worry about him, as he's become one of the most  
stable things in her life. That they had so much trouble earlier actually makes her feel better;  
with Paul, there was no similar spate of combustive events, just a long, drawn-out burn. In the  
course of a couple of months, Dexter has faced his addiction, gone through the period of acting  
out that Rita had actually been half-expecting, and returned to her, like a conquering hero.  
Arthur to Guinevere. Odysseus to Penelope. But, on nights when she is alone, when Dexter is at  
N.A., or bowling with his friends, or just having what she thinks of as `Dexter time', because it's  
necessary for people in relationships to have some time on their own, Rita sometimes looks  
toward the ceiling and asks in a soft voice, "That was it, right?"

After what happened with Lila, Rita was afraid that Dexter would give up on N.A., thinking that  
it was full of people like Lila: emotional vampires and percolating lunatics. Rita felt that flush of  
fear that used to come over her whenever Paul, who had actually attended a couple of meetings,  
on the rare occasions that he was contrite after coming home late, with a listing walk and  
clenched fists, would proclaim himself cured and no longer in need of the twelve steps. "And  
their fucking coffee sucks, too," he'd add, as though this were the real reason for his  
abandonment of the program, and a great insult against him. Rita began to prepare her speech:  
Dexter, do it for us. Dexter, you aren't cured, and you never will be, but you have to stick with  
it. Dexter, I promise it will get easier. Dexter, if you don't do this, we're over. And she was  
ready to mean the last part.

In the end, though, her concern was unfounded. He kept attending meetings, and got a new  
sponsor: a chubby, balding man of about forty named Francis, who spoke earnestly about the  
program, and credited it- and a newly-discovered love of fly-fishing- with saving his life. Francis  
told knock-knock jokes, and had three daughters around Cody and Astor's ages; Dexter said that  
he was always flipping out new pictures of them, stuck into the plastic sleeves in his wallet.

"You really like Francis?" Rita asked Dexter one day. She couldn't keep both the bewilderment  
and the hope out of her voice. Bewilderment, because Francis was, in many ways, Dexter's polar  
opposite- just as Lila had been strangely complimentary. Hope, because there was something  
heartening about the arrangement, an older man, experienced in the program, with a settled life,  
taking Dexter under his wing.

"Well, yeah. Why? Don't you?"

"No, no. I'm just- I'm just glad that you found somebody that you can work with." She wanted  
to ask questions, about how it was how, precisely, it was working out- what did they talk about,  
Dexter and this balding fly-fisher?- but didn't dare. The last thing that she wanted was to pry.  
Paul had been defensive about his addictions, and while she didn't get that feeling from Dexter,  
she did get the impression that there were some things that he just didn't want to share with her.  
Like whatever had happened to his mother. That still stung, that he had told Lila- at the time,  
little better than a stranger, to spite her being his sponsor- and never breathed a word of it to her.  
He would tell Rita, though, when he was ready- if he ever was ready. And if he wasn't, Rita  
could deal with it. She felt morbid, anyway, wanting to know so badly what had really happened  
to the poor woman. The actual story was probably not very significant, like most very personal,  
very sad stories. Anyway, it was only one part of Dexter that she couldn't touch; it wasn't as  
though that one event made up who he was.

Dexter is bowling tonight. It isn't his team's night at the lanes, but sometimes, she knows,  
Dexter likes to practice on his own. "I've been having wrist issues," he told her, "I think that I  
might need to get a brace." She knows how much Dexter hates letting people down. It's one of  
his best qualities, she thinks.

All the same, she misses him. Misses having him in the room with her. Misses absently looking  
into the living room while she's preparing dinner, and seeing him playing with Cody and Astor,  
or helping them with their homework, and feeling this sweet shock: Oh, that's my boyfriend.  
Sometimes, when she's especially distracted, her eyes will alight on him, and it's as though she's  
seeing him for the first time: Oh, that's the man I love.

Rita feels safe with him. And for this, she hates herself a little bit. Because, when Paul had first  
been ejected from her life, she swore to herself that she would never make that mistake again.  
Once, it had been Paul who gave her that impenetrable sense of security. Until, one day, he  
turned to look at her, his face twisted in sudden, sloppy rage, and it occurred to her that it cut  
both ways: the hands that, early in their relationship, had bunched into fists and mashed the face  
of the guy who had tried to mug them could just as easily do the same to her. Now, Rita can't be  
in a hospital, smell the scent unique to them, without thinking of Paul, and the many times that  
he sent her there. And she thinks of the hospital smell, sometimes, when she thinks of Dexter,  
and what he did to Paul.

Paul was the price that she paid for her new happiness. For her new sense of security. For  
Dexter. And sometimes, she looks at Dexter, and thinks, What can he do? What is he capable  
of? Not that she doesn't already know, what Dexter can and will do. Sometimes, she thinks of  
going to Paul's grave, telling him that she's sorry, but then she thinks of all of the things that he  
did to her, and almost did to their children, and she figures that Paul and she are about even. And  
this, that she can so easily reduce their life together to a sort of equation is what she hates most  
about herself. Her mother, a pragmatist to the bone, would approve, and that somehow makes it  
worse.

Tonight, though, Rita feels light. Paul is the furthest thing from her mind. Dexter is, too,  
actually. Work was surprisingly easy, and almost enjoyable. She surprised Astor and Cody by  
taking them out to dinner, which rarely happens in the middle of the week. The whole way to the  
restaurant, they talk excitedly about what they're going to order, and the whole way back, they  
share disjointed, contented narratives about exciting new projects at school. Astor is learning the  
multiplication tables; Cody says that his teacher said that they're going to get a hamster.  
Listening silently, Rita feels such a swell of love for her children and gratitude for her life that  
her eyes well up.

At home, Astor recites the nine multiplication table after having completed her math work sheets,  
and helps Cody with Spelling. "`Enough,'" Cody says, "E-n-n-u-f? `Enough'."

"It's e-n-o-u-g-h," says Astor, rolling her eyes in a way that she's developed recently.  
Sometimes, Rita thinks of her children's encroaching adolescence and shudders. Whatever  
happens, though, she knows that she can get through it.

After she's put her children to bed, the phone rings. It's Dexter. Unconsciously, she finds  
herself biting her lip and twirling the hair at the nape of her neck, the way she used to when she  
was younger.

"How was bowling?" she asks.

"Couldn't make it tonight. I had something to take care of at work."

"Was it serious?"

"No," says Dexter, in his calm, bright voice, "Just more of the same. I'm tying up a few loose  
ends, now, but how about I come over when I'm done?"

Rita feels her face color. "Sure. You'll have to be quiet, though; the kids are asleep."

"You know how quiet I can be when I try."

She laughs a little, though there isn't anything especially funny about what he said. It's the  
prospect of him, though, the promise of him, that fills her up with this... something that she has  
to let out.

"So, I'll be there in an hour?" In the background, on Dexter's side, there's a noise that sounds  
like a boat's motor. The connection must not be good.

"Great. You know, you've been on my mind all day," which is not true, but feels like it is.

"You've been thinking about me?"

"Yes," she says, flirtatiously.

"Good things, I hope."

Rita smiles. "Always."

 


End file.
